[Chooglin']

Maybe I am missing something here, but I am left wondering why Apple or some other non-MS company has not yet introduced an office suite that can rival MS Office.

Why can't Apple make an office suite that provides the same functionality? I'm thinking of things like Excel Pivot Tables, an Access-like database program, and some sort of powerful yet easy scripting ability. I understand that MS Office has been under development for 20+ years, but it can't really be that difficult if MS can do it. Most of what is in MS Office has been there for the majority of its development. The major changes, especially in Office 2007, are in the program itself, not its functionality.

So what's the deal with the lack of a real commercially developed office suite application on OS X? Building applications are nice, but the flexibility and integration of Word, Excel, Access, and Outlook and extensible scripting are much more desirable for offices than separate applications.

[Colonel Panic]

There are a number of alternatives. Primarily, for years the difficulty wasn't in functionality but in the fact that in order to compete you needed to interact well with Office given its massive installed base and mindshare, meaning you needed full compatibility with Office file formats. These are proprietary; most efforts fell short, meaning that choosing an Office competitor risked making you a real value-subtractor for docs and sheets passed around and modified.

This limitation meant it was hard to get an installed base and hard to generate enough sales to make enough money doing this for it to be worth the effort. Lotus, Corel etc got squeezed.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Chooglin' 

Why can't Apple make an office suite that provides the same functionality? I'm thinking of things like Excel Pivot Tables, an Access-like database program, and some sort of powerful yet easy scripting ability.

Apple creates applications to give people powerful, easy-to-use tools for everyday tasks to promote the use of its operating system and hardware, e.g. iLife and iWork. MS Office already exists for Mac. What's in it for Apple to create something that is exactly like MS Office?

[analogika]

^ Yep.

For the average user, iWork is a FAR more powerful *creation* tool than Microsoft Office - simply because he's able to do so much more useful stuff with it (whereas you need damn near a college degree to do any useful stuff with, say Excel, let alone layout with Word, and no amount of experience in the world can actually make results look *good* in PowerPoint).

Apple's suite has its strengths in exactly those segments where Office falls completely on its face.

For compatibility, there's the free OpenOffice/NeoOffice.

[peeb]

Apple needs Office on the Mac. If they produce anything too close, and MS stops producing it, that's a major problem.